A debt that can’t be paid

Our opinion: People who use public office to commit crimes should be barred from holding office again.

Twenty years ago, James J. Coyne Jr. was found guilty of breaching the public trust as Albany County executive. Now he wants the public to trust him again, and send him to the state Assembly.

Mr. Coyne, we suspect, will find voters in no mood for an encore performance. Chumps the citizens are not.

But that shouldn’t be the end of it. Quixotic as it may be, Mr. Coyne’s quest for another dip in the public trough is an example of the arrogance of some people who see public service not as a privilege, but as something that their talents and charms practically entitle them to, even if they turn out to be criminals. It boggles the mind.

There ought to be a law, as they say: Those who illegally use public office for private gain should be barred from running run for public office again, ever.

Mr. Coyne was found guilty in October 1992 of bribery, conspiracy and extortion for accepting $30,000 from architect J. Gregory Crozier in exchange for steering him the design contract for the Knickerbocker Arena, now called the Times Union Center. He served 46 months in federal prison.

It has been hard to get any sense of serious repentance from Mr. Coyne, who has tended to blame his fall on others, like ambitious prosecutors, and has tried several times to run for public office again.

But whether he’s repentant or not is beside the point. Mr. Coyne knew better, or certainly should have for a man in his position, and he broke the law anyway. And we’d dare say that any politician who improperly uses his public post to gain money or favors knows better.

They should know, too, that there is a more lasting price to pay — the loss of the right to hold public office. The state Constitution does this even more broadly with judges, barring them from judicial office if they’re removed for any felony.

This ought to go hand in hand with another proposal that might make even those who are willing to gamble their careers think twice: Public employees, elected or otherwise, who commit crimes related to their jobs should lose their public pension. It’s a harsh but smart idea that might at least stop taxpayers from having to bear the insult of paying someone’s retirement on top of the injury of paying for their misdeeds. Yet so far the pension idea hasn’t quite gotten sufficient traction in the state Legislature, no matter how good an idea so many politicians claim to think it is.

Some — perhaps Mr. Coyne himself — might argue that permanently taking away someone’s right to run for public office rejects the idea of redemption and rehabilitation — that once they’ve paid their debt to society, that should be the end of it.

But the damage done by crooked officials like Mr. Coyne isn’t fixed in 46 months, and not even, we would offer, in 20 years. Every betrayal like his erodes the public’s perception of leaders and, in turn, of government. That’s an intangible, enduring debt. It should be paid for in kind.